A substantial volume of sales transactions is conducted by way of real-time auctions where multiple auction participants, (e.g., buyers, or bidders) compete with each other to be the winning bidder for the purchase of real or personal property. For example, real estate foreclosures are conventionally carried out on the “courthouse steps” in an environment requiring bidders to make real time decisions in the face of a dynamic information environment. Among the information parameters that may rapidly change, knowledge of which would aid in an intelligent bidding decision, are availability, price history and current price of comparable properties, value of money, interest rate on money, rent, local marketing data, census data and expected growth areas.
Information about a particular auctioned item may exist in the public domain, or in various proprietary databases maintained by third party data aggregators. Such information is generally not satisfactory for informed real time decision making by an auction participant, and therefore is not actionable, because of a lack of assurance that the information was accurately recorded or currently updated.
As a result, improved methods for providing actionable auction information in near-real time are desirable.